


The Boat Maker

by Proffroggy



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Action/Adventure, Attempt at Humor, Gen, Mystery, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-16 10:08:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29080650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Proffroggy/pseuds/Proffroggy
Summary: Hi All,This is set as an immediate sequel to Deathly Hallows (pre-prologue).The battle is over but Harry's life is far from back to normal. Every night, when he falls asleep, he returns again to the dream of King's Cross. Although nobody is there to meet him, he cannot shake the feeling that he is being watched. Meanwhile, in his waking life, these night-time visits seem to be changing him both magically and physically.Can Harry and his friends unravel the mystery of the dream King's Cross before it is too late? it will be a difficult journey. All the while, they are stalked by a new threat - a dark figure in the shadows, known only as The Boat Maker...





	The Boat Maker

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoy! This is my first proper attempt at publishing anything that I've written. I'd really like to make my writing as good as possible, so any feedback/tips/criticism would be much appreciated!
> 
> Thanks for reading. PF X

The Boat Maker

Chapter One: An Interview at the Beach

He folds his promises into paper boats and sets them sail. Silently they go. Upon the water his face hangs reflected, moon-pale; smooth until broken by the arrowhead shapes of three nudged wakes. The boats go out onto the endless water and are lost in the mist. As they fade, he whispers his promises one by one:   
‘I will kill you, Harry Potter.  
‘I will kill you, Harry Potter.   
‘I will kill you, Harry Potter.’

~

Harry is faster than he used to be. He is stronger, too, and his reactions have become so sharp that the world seems dipped in molasses. He can’t say when this change took place. He becomes aware of it only now, when the guy with the knife steps out into the alleyway and asks him for his wallet.  
This is a big guy. He’s got the kind of arms where the veins bulge up against the skin, as if there just isn’t enough space inside him for all of the steroids. He towers up over Harry, a glutted shape all black but for the six inches of daylight that he carries in a switchblade.  
Afterwards, Harry will wonder why he wasn’t more frightened. Why he didn’t use magic. Why he didn’t even think. He just steps inside the reach of the knife and lays his knuckles alongside the guy’s jaw with the force of a kicking mule. And then he’s standing there in this rain-wet alleyway, nursing a bleeding fist, looking down at one-hundred-and-twenty kilograms of mugger laid out at his feet. He is bemused. He’s also a little pleased, because what boy in the world hasn’t daydreamed of punching out a guy in a knife fight?  
He glances at his watch and curses. His knuckles hurt like hell but he’ll have to fix them later – he doesn’t want to be late for her. He picks up the switchblade and tosses it out of sight, then trots away down the street, heading for the busy part of town.

Cobblestone-Basset. Harry smiles, because it’s exactly the kind of place he expected her to live: this small town that bustles how country towns do, all the people in rain coats; shuffling; clumped glumly in the shelter of an old, timber-framed market hall. Apart from the cars you could believe this scene was happening a hundred years ago.  
He crosses the street, side-stepping an old Fiat, hops up onto the pavement and dodges through a knot of church-type women in bonnets. There’s a collection of old shops crowded beneath overhanging eaves, they sell knick-knacks, tourist things; he shelters in the doorway of one and pushes his rain-slicked hair out of his eyes and fishes in his pocket. He pulls out a scrap of paper. He checks the address – 17, Farringdon Sq. Well alright then.  
This town presents itself along the main road as a short ribbon; behind, however, it divulges a labyrinth of alleyways, of cobbled squares, slate rooves jauntily stacked against the sky. He realizes he should have brought a map but he hadn’t expected her to be so hard to find. He wanders for a long time, turning and backtracking, passes four times the same dismal-looking ironmongers. The rain is getting wetter; about him rain. Staccato ting of rain in iron gutters. Again he pushes his hair out of his eyes and finds himself at last looking at a small wrought-iron sign: Farringdon Square. Small place. He thinks it might be nice when dry. A beech tree shivers beneath the sky. A knot of benches bully an ornamental well.  
He crosses to the door of number 17 and knocks. Barely a pause – she’s been expecting him – before the door swings open and she’s standing there wearing robes of course and a witch’s hat, and with the usual severe expression that he remembers, she says to him:  
‘Potter, you’re soaked. Why on earth didn’t you apparate here?’  
‘It’s a long story,’ he says. He smiles, he can’t help it. ‘It’s good to see you again, Professor McGonagall.’  
‘Hmm,’ she says, ‘it may not be if you drip on the rug.’

She precedes him up a narrow staircase. Magic lights the way, orbs hung up and casting down a murmuring light on wooden stair boards, on lathe-and-plaster walls, he thinks they might be a dusky pink colour it’s hard to tell in the light. A sense as he goes up of the house being crooked; the stairs wind and tangle, further than he expected, until suddenly they come out into a wide bright space.  
‘Oh,’ he says, ‘This is not what I expected.’ She looks pleased, like she likes surprising people. Funny, he thinks, how teachers are people too.  
‘No doubt you were imagining a dusty old study, filled with books?’  
‘More or less.’  
‘Well, I have books at least,’ she says, and she points to them. Yes, a handful of novels lie stacked in two piles. But upon them stands a half-full martini glass, two olives in there and a small umbrella cocked at a raffish slant. Beside the books and the drink, a sun lounger is laid out flat in the shade of a full size, real-life palm tree, twice as tall as Harry, its fronds shading the lounger from what appears to be a sun hanging above in a pale blue sky. He crosses to the tree and wonderingly runs his hand over the trunk: the bark is real, rough, sap beneath like blood alive and pulsing to his touch. Beside the tree an old record player bubbles the notes of a jazz trumpet up into the branches. He hears a strange noise and, looking up, sees a family of parrots, seated in the branches and copying the music bird-wise. Only after seeing all this does he notice that the floor is not a floor at all but a golden beach, lapped on three sides by crystal clear water.  
‘It’s fresh water, not salt,’ says McGonagall, following his gaze. ‘I can’t bear salt water, it irritates my eyes.’  
‘This is incredible,’ he breathes.  
‘I’m glad you like it. Albus helped me with it – years ago. I doubt I could have done it by myself. Would you like a cup of tea?’  
Beyond the palm tree there are several more, forming a small copse amongst which apparently there is some sort of kitchen, for she goes in and soon Harry hears the sound of a kettle at work. He sits down on the sun lounger beneath the palm tree, looks up at the parrots, listens to the rush-hush-purr of waves upon the sand.  
‘The sun,’ he says to her when she returns, a steaming mug in each hand, ‘it’s actually hot. How on earth did you manage that?’  
‘It’s a modified form of a heliotrope spell. Albus’s idea, of course. It has to be renewed every six months or so but the effect is really rather good. It won’t give you a tan, though.’  
‘I never imagined you to be much of a sun-bather, professor.’  
‘I’m long past the age of being interested in my complexion. Still, I find this a very pleasant place to relax, when I have the chance.’  
‘No kidding,’ Harry says. Unable to resist the urge he’s taken off his shoes and socks, that delicious feeling of curling his toes into the warm sand, he nurses his mug in his hands while glancing sidelong at the half-full martini glass. ‘I always thought you lived at the school full time,’ he says.  
‘I practically do. But there are a few weeks in the summer… Everybody has their little retreat. Filius goes skiing in New Zealand every August.’  
‘Really?!’ he laughs. ‘Now that I have to see.’  
She takes a long sip from her mug, half-hiding her face; carefully she studies him. ‘I didn’t think I would be hearing you laugh again for a long time.’  
‘Good days and bad days,’ he shrugs, answering the question that she hadn’t quite asked. ‘Everything is so different now. People have died, and to some extent that’s on me… but at the same time I can’t help but feel lighter.’  
‘Weight of the world no longer on your shoulders?’  
‘Something like that. I guess that’s the brighter side of coming back from the dead.’  
‘Back in May, you mean?’  
‘Yes, back in May.’ He pauses, wondering how to go on. She continues to watch him. She has conjured another lounger and is laid out on it, this incongruous shape of Professor McGonagall in her witches robes black against the beach’s white, face wrinkled against the light, her pursed lip-sip-sound on the mug’s rim in counterbeat to the desert island shush. He notices only now that her mug has World’s Best Granny written on it. Makes him think, how nobody’s ever exactly who you think they are.  
‘May,’ he says, kind of tasting the word. ‘That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, actually.’  
‘Am I about to learn the reason why you did not apparate today?’  
‘Yes. At least, I think so. There must be a connection. You remember what I told you, how, after I died, I went to a shadow of King’s Cross?’  
‘Yes,’ she says, and softly: ‘You saw Albus there.’  
‘Yes.’  
‘You spoke to him.’  
‘Yes,’ says Harry, and adds, without knowing why, ‘He spoke to me. It wasn’t… I didn’t ask him to be there, or anything.’  
‘He came because he wanted to.’ Harry thinks it extraordinary how well this woman understands him.  
‘Well… these past few nights I’ve been going back there. To King’s Cross.’  
Professor McGonagall says nothing. She looks out over the water towards the point where, through conjured refraction, it blends into the sky. Harry watches her. His finger taps on the mug handle.  
‘How many times has this happened?’ she asks, still with her eyes on the horizon.  
‘I’m not sure, exactly. Maybe five or six? Every night this week at least.’  
‘And what does Albus say about it?’  
‘Well that’s just it,’ he says, shifting his seat. ‘He’s not there. Nobody is. I arrive in King’s Cross and it’s empty – just benches and pillars and tracks stretching into nowhere. Just going into the mist.’  
‘So what do you do while you are there?’  
‘Nothing!’ He sits up, rubbing his jaw in frustration. ‘I just wander around for a bit, and after a few minutes I wake up again. I tried calling out the first few times I was there but nobody came. The place is completely empty, and yet…all the time that I’m there, I have the distinct impression that someone is watching me.’  
‘The main problem we have here,’ McGonagall says slowly, ‘is that this situation is unprecedented. As seems so often to be the case with you, Potter, we are moving into areas of magic hitherto unexplored.’  
‘You can say that again, Professor.’  
‘How do you feel whilst you are there? Do you feel in any danger? Alarmed, perhaps?’  
‘Not particularly,’ he frowns, trying to remember. ‘The first couple of times I was excited, to be honest. There was a lot I wanted to say –‘ He stops. He is suddenly conscious that McGonagall knew Dumbledore much longer than he did, has no doubt many things that she would also like to say. She pretends not to notice his discomfort.  
‘You say that you believe these night-time journeys are somehow preventing you from apparating. How so? I am sure that this experience must be inconvenient every night – alarming even – but I don’t see how that should disrupt your travel plans.’  
‘Well that’s the thing. I’m not certain that the two things are related, but… well, I’ve been having some trouble with magic.’  
‘Trouble?’  
‘Yes. Even with simple spells.’  
‘Harry,’ she says gently, ‘don’t be too concerned if they aren’t working properly for you. It is common to feel underpowered for some time after a traumatic experience.’  
‘But that’s just it! I’m having entirely the opposite problem – my spells are becoming too powerful.’ Harry has to stand. He begins to pace a circle in front of her, kicking up neurotic sand clouds with his toes.  
If McGonagall’s eyebrows climb any higher, he thinks, they will become attached to her hat. ‘I’m not sure I understand,’ she says.  
‘It doesn’t happen all the time, although it has been getting more and more frequent. Sometimes, when I go to cast a spell, it comes out…BIG.’  
‘Big?’  
‘BIG. With capital letters, Professor.’  
‘So…’  
‘So if, for example, I were to cast an ignus spell to light a candle, I might find my wand has turned into a flamethrower. Or if I cast lumos I find the sun poking out the end of it.’  
‘I see,’ she says faintly. He continues to pace and she watches him, something catlike in her, he notices, the pricked movements of her head. ‘And how… how often would you say this is happening?’  
‘I’m not sure. Every couple of days, maybe? I try to cast as little magic as possible, obviously.’  
‘Obviously.’  
‘Are you alright, Professor?’  
She has sat up in her chair and is rubbing her temples as if to stave off a migraine. ‘I’m quite alright,’ she says, ‘but it’s you we have to worry about, Potter. I can certainly see why you didn’t apparate. You might have ended up on the moon. Or somewhere even worse.’  
‘Like Coventry,’ Harry nods. ‘But I’m afraid that’s not all, professor. I’ve also been changing…er…physically.’  
‘Physically?’ she slumps back in her chair, one hand draped across her eyes like a blindfold. ‘Good lord, Potter, you are a teenager. We are not about to have a conversation about the birds and the bees, are we?’  
‘Ah, no I didn’t mean like that, Professor. You see, I seem to be getting stronger.’  
‘I would have thought that was only natural for a boy your age.’  
‘Much stronger, Professor. I mean, like, crazy strong. And I’ve gotten…fast.’  
‘Fast.’  
‘Yes, fast. I mean, well – I wasn’t sure if I should tell you – but I got attacked earlier.’  
‘Attacked?!’ McGonagall sat up so sharply it was as if she’d been poked with a cattle prod. ‘Who by? Dark wizards? Left over Death Eaters?’  
‘No, no, nothing like that! He was just some guy. Some muggle. He was after my wallet. He tried to stop me as I was coming here through the back alleys. He looked big enough to pull my head off.’  
‘And what on earth did you do?’  
‘I – well – actually professor, I knocked him out.’  
A long silence greeted this comment, during which McGonagall studied him through narrowed eyes. ‘Potter,’ she says, ‘I certainly hope that I do not detect a note of pride in your voice.’  
‘Of course not, professor.’  
‘Of course not. Because that would make you a violence-loving boor, wouldn’t it?’  
‘Yes professor. Well anyway,’ Harry goes on hurriedly, ‘This guy was big, really big. And when he tried to attack me, somehow the world just moved so slowly. I had time to think – time to do anything. So I just hit him. And he fell down.’ He finishes his story rather lamely, unnerved perhaps by her staring eyes.  
‘You think that this has something to do with your nightly travels?’  
‘Well, it started - feeling like this – it started around the same time as my magical problems did – around the same time as the night travels started.’  
‘I see.’ McGonagall, turning her gaze away from him at last; she steeples her fingers and lays her chin upon them to think. With a pang, Harry realizes that it is the exact gesture Dumbledore used to adopt. He wonders, absurdly, whether she has inherited it from him along with the office and the title of headmistress.  
‘I will need time to ponder this, Potter. I must consult… I have never heard of symptoms quite like yours. Where are you living at the moment?’  
‘In Wales,’ he says surprised at the change of subject, ‘at Hermione’s house. She’s off bringing her parents back from Australia so –‘  
‘Is it in the countryside? Yes. And fairly isolated?’  
‘I think so. I’m not sure what you would call isolated, professor.’  
‘What I really want to know, Potter, is does it have a garden that can’t be seen by the neighbours, and would it also be out of earshot if you were to cast, say, a reducto spell?’  
‘Oh right. Um… yes to the first, no to the second.’  
‘Right then,’ she says. ‘This is what we are going to do…’ She lies back in her chair, closes her eyes and tells him her plan. Harry sat beside her feels like an aide de camp at Napoleon’s side, jotting down plans for Waterloo. When she’s finished she cracks one eye open and looks at him. ‘Do you understand all that, Potter? Good. Then I will be with you tomorrow morning at 9 o’clock.’  
‘Actually Professor, is there any chance we could do the afternoon instead? I’m going to visit the Burrow in the morning.’ He tries to keep his voice normal as he says this. McGonagall notices.  
‘First time since May?’ she asks gently.  
‘Yes.’ There is a pause. Harry is grateful to the water, filling their silences with its noise.  
‘Very well, Potter,’ says McGonagall, ‘we’ll make it after lunch instead. Alright?’  
‘Yes. Thank you, Professor.’  
‘Do you need a portkey to get home?’  
‘No thanks professor, I’ve got a broom, and my invisibility cloak.’ He could do with the feel of it, the wind on his face, she can see that.  
‘Very good, Potter, I will see you tomorrow then. Good evening.’  
‘Good evening, Professor.’  
He leaves her beneath her palm tree, sipping a martini that has filled itself brimful. He stops once to look back: the magical sun is setting now, has dropped low and singes fire-bright the crested wave caps. The parrots in their tree have eyes that glow. They look down upon this frail old woman dressed in widow’s black: she drinks alone against the sunset. As you get older, thinks Harry, there are fewer lives that you can choose to lead.  
Leaving the house he finds that the square has come alive for dusk: children are playing, running and scuffing, their coat-tails swooping bat shapes through sheaves of ebbing light. Summer here, but only as a rumour, shared by the trees, by the shuttered windows part-opened, spilling their touch-warm keys of ivory light upon the paved earth. Through ricocheting kid-calls he heads homeward, private in his sorrows – “What a fool!” wink the streetlights. “What a fool.”


End file.
